Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday February 21, 2012 @11:50AM
from the mere-pocket-change dept.

jfruh writes "Hey, remember when Oracle decided to sue Google over claims that Android violated Oracle's Java patents and copyrights? How's that working out? Not so well, it seems! Oracle has been forced to take many of its patents out of the lawsuit due to lack of evidence, and the damages in play now are down to a little less than 4 percent of Oracle's original $6.1 billion claims."

Mr. Madison, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEkWH8DB7b0 [youtube.com]

Oracle could have filed lawsuits against the manufacturers on day 1. Example: Microsoft, which gets royalty payments from Samsung, HTC, LG, etc but hasn't gone after Google (except indirectly via Motorola).

It would probably be easier to hit the manufacturers directly since blocking imports isn't good for revenue. That's a pretty strong incentive to license up.

Well if those emails that Oracle got a hold of are allowed in court (sorry i can't find the link, it was on/. awhile back so maybe someone can find it?) where one of the employees basically said "We'll see how much they want for Java and if the price is to high we'll just make our own version" then they are sunk, the only question is how much they are gonna have to pay. How long before corps learn that email is a BAD idea with a capital B? Call 'em on the damned phone already, quit leaving a paper trail th

Are you talking about Lindholm email [groklaw.net]? it was allowed in court, and an out of context conversation of people that doesn't know enough to determine of two systems are similar does not a proof make.

There is a lot that is different here. I think someone needs to enumerate them and I'm sure someone else has already done so. However, since I can find no enumeration actively, I'll do so here. I beg forgiveness to anyone who's already done this because they've most likely done a better job than myself.

Microsoft v Sun - This wasn't a patent case. This was mostly a breach of contract case. Microsoft signed an agreement with Sun Microsystems at the time, to implement a version of the JVM for Microsoft Windows. This was actually par for the course in the start-up days of Java, to have a JVM, the OS maker had to write the JVM and only if they had a signed agreement could the OS maker do so. (It's one of the reasons Microsoft felt really compelled to start.NET)

Back on track... Microsoft put some value added stuff in their JVM that basically made java byte code developed for MS-JVM incompatible with other JVMs. Namely, RNI and J/Direct to name a few. This was strictly not what Microsoft agreed to in the deal. It was found in court that Microsoft had made the MS-JVM specifically with the idea to hijack Java altogether as part of a wider embrace, extend, and extinguish that involved Netscape as well. Bytecode from another vendor would run on MS-JVM, but if the same source was compiled with Microsoft's javac (java compiler) then the bytecode would fail on every other JVM out there. This was especially true with the implementation of Java Sockets which explicitly loaded two different libraries. One for other bytecode and one for MS bytecode.

Now the biggest problem, other than Microsoft had signed an agreement to not do this, was that Microsoft was calling this Java and cited that the agreement allowed them to slap a Java logo on their product. Sun took offense to that idea and additionally sued their butts for trademark infringement. That last part is what is important here. Trademark infringement.

Let's switch over to Google...

In this case we are now dealing with Oracle v Google. The case between the two isn't a single point of law that's being brought up, just like the Sun v Microsoft was contractual, trademark, and anti-trust. What Google did was create a new virtual machine, which is not illegal. However, their choice programming language borrows the Java programming language syntax, which while not illegal, does draw the platform as a whole and the virtual machine in question. Google doesn't brand their platform as being Java and they've signed no contract with Oracle or Sun before that, agreeing that they would stick to the Java spec.

Oracle brings up the issue that Google's implementation pollutes the Java ecosystem, but there again, Google makes no claims to their VM being Java. That said, Oracle still takes issue that you have things like java.lang.String and so forth. Mind you that the Oracle java.lang.String and Google java.lang.String are two different beast. Which brings us to the underlying issue.

Google's implementation of the Java Language Spec (JLS), at least the parts that they borrow, did not come from code that is under Oracle's protection. It came from the Apache Harmony project which is under a different license than the JLS. Thus one point to argue in court is, is it legal to make an implementation of a language, even part of it, that is neither a standard (ISO/ECMA) and not under an open license (remember this was what all the brew-ha-ha was with the Apache split from the JCP.) I can write my own C++ compiler because it is a standard (ISO) so long as I don't use any methods that others have patented. I can write my own Python compiler because it is under an open license, again so long as I obey the license and don't use any already patented methods. Java, however, is neither a standard or under an open license (an implementation is open sourced called OpenJDK but Java the language is still not under an open license.)

Oracle may have been overzealous by a far degree. The process this is taking is likely very stupid. Many have been thrown out. However, that doesn't mean the last few aren't legally sound under the current system/process. Maybe they aren't. The most obvious offenders were withdrawn. It is now time to test the sturdier ones to the law process.

Who knows, maybe Oracle will loose and set a useful precedent for the Googles?

What I dont get is how come there isnt a penalty for pursuing a lawsuit where 96% of it is thrown out?If Oracle had brought a similar lawsuit on a small firm instead of Google, they(the small firm) would have probably been shut down just because of the costs of the suit

What I dont get is how come there isnt a penalty for pursuing a lawsuit where 96% of it is thrown out?

Are you serious? Who benefits from long drawn out frivolous lawsuits? Lawyers. Who controls the courts? Judges, who are lawyers. Who makes the laws? Politicians, who are 85% lawyers. There is no one in a position to fix the system who has any incentive to do so.

Even if there is a small kernel of truth somewhere in there, there is a line between merely overzealous and a big fat lie. The best liars always build on a small kernel of truth to make it believable. If they are over that line, they deserve to lose on the whole thing so they won't do it again.

The last thing we need is a bunch of plaintiffs trying to turn a paper cut into a life altering event worth millions in compensation.

In legislations, where it is "loser pays", this first reference point is important for the later outcome. Google was sued for 6.1bn, valuing the lawsuit at 6.1bn. If Oracle manages to get the 230mil awarded, this means that there were 5.87bn, which they didn't get. That would mean that Oracle has to pay 96% of the whole costs for the lawsuit.

Were this a contract negotiation where both parties are presumed to be permitted to ask for anything at all so long as it's legal, that would be fine. However, this is court where the parties are placed under an oath to tell the truth and are expected to back their numbers with fact and law.

The compulsory nature of the courtroom is the key difference. If you and I are free to walk away, you can indeed ask me for a million dollars for a stick of gum. I walk away and that's that. If I am NOT free to just laug

According to my reading at Groklaw - it's going to likely be more like $20-$30 million. There is a good chance that the third report(and extraordinary even having a third chance at the apple in and of itself) didn't rectify the problems the court directed Oracle to fix. They may loose ALL testimony on damages. They have managed to shoot themselves in the foot quite satisfactorily.

At least they aren't going the route of apple which last week, for example, patented an existing 3D eye tracking based icon display system of which there is a demo by someone else in youtube since 2009.

In a quick scan of the patentlyapple article I didn't see a link to the application or an application number given. did it say when the app was filed? was it more than a year after the youtube demo? was there other, earlier published prior art, for the youtube product or someone else?

After the apotheosis of Jobs, the reality distortion field was so intensified that space and time itself operate differently within the confines of his mortuary temple. Anybody within the sanctum operates as an innovator-outside-of-time. They may appear to release specific developments at specific points in the pitifully linear 'history' experienced by the unenlightened; but they(how this works is a Holy Mystery; but it is so)are simultaneously are perpetually innovating beyond time, have already invented all technologies worth inventing, and will invent all technologies worth inventing.

Human history is, in fact, simply a mortal's-eye-view of the bestowal of gifts of innovation on various Chosen at various times. The patent office is simply recognizing this.

No, they in fact cover ideas. I don't care what the intent of the law is, the fact is that patents are written in impenetrably vague "patentese" that even trained lawyers can't decipher unless they specialize in the field. This, along with a "fence" of similar patents with the same degree of vagueness, allows one to interpret the language of one or more of these patents in pretty much any manifestation of the idea or even anything vaguely similar to the idea. That is, of course, assuming one has the mone

On February 10, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a hot 3D eye-tracking based interface that will be used for gaming, digital photography and videography, biometrics and surveillance applications while being an OS feature option for iOS devices and Apple's iMac.

According to the article, it is a publication of a patent application (PGPUB). The actual publication number is US 2012/0036433 A1. It probably hasn't even been examined yet.

Please inform yourself of the basics of the US patent system before posting stuff like this.

Lawsuits will always be a business model wherever the law provides a cause of action [wikipedia.org]. To take the legal system out of the equation, you have to remove the cause of action. Legislators create causes of action, and U.S. legislators have been captured [wikipedia.org] by rent-seeking monopolists [wikipedia.org]. The only way I can see to clean this up is to end the capture [rootstrikers.org].

Personally, I don't think Oracle has a chance of winning because Android uses java on the back-end and it is just a reimplementation of the Java SDK targeting smartphones. However, I am starting to think the purpose of this lawsuit is less about money on the front end and more about locking Android onto java backend by threatening Google with patent infringement if they change the backend to not be java based. The reason I think this is because rumor has it that Oracle has massively jacked up the cost of bu

The lawsuit makes sense if Oracles wants to stop Google from distributing Android, if they want to stop Google from using Java (hey, that would be a great outcome), or if they want to get money from every Android device.

Their claims simply don't require that Google uses Java. Unless they come with a complete turn around at the settlement.

Oracle should think long and hard about whether it wants to persist on the issue of patent infringement or, for that matter, any infringement at all. Those failed settlement discussions probably look a lot more attractive to Oracle right now.

No, because Oracle's not that stupid, and Android is too far entrenched.

Remember, Java's main revenue stream is all the J2ME licenses that everyone pays. Given that most phones sold today are non-smartphones, that means every phone sold that way pays Oracle for the J2ME runtime.

All Oracle is seeing here that Android should pay up as well, and to negotiate with Google on what rates it should be.

the sort of Java that is in Android is not J2ME at all and is more like J2SE. The licensing cost for J2SE is significantly more expensive per unit than J2ME. It could be a deal breaker for some Android phones to have to shell out such a large royalty.

Though, there may soon be an Android LA (similar to MPEG-LA) to handle all the patent licensing stuff - pay a per-unit royalty to A-LA and get access to Microsoft's, Apple's, Oracle's, and the rest of the ETSI's patents.

Heck, I'm surprised there's no ETSI-LA for handling all the FRAND patent licensing stuff instead of having to negotiate individually with Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Microsoft, Motorola, and all the other patent licenseholders.

That stuff generally only happens when the standard is created by a group of companies who want the patents to read on it so that they, themselves, can collect royalties from everybody else. If the standard (or technology) is maintained by a third party (like Google), creating a patent pool is like putting up a billboard saying, "hey Google, here is a list of specific patents you can set your army of lawyers and engineers to work invalidating or designing around." And then most of them get invalidated and t

Seriously does anyone know if they considered it at all and if they did why they chose not to? Sun and Google seems to me to have been a natural pairing. Certainly all the absolutely first rate R and D that went on at Sun would have fit into Google's culture. So why didn't they?

An excellent point. Google should have, and it was a strategic mistake not to do it. Google uses Java quite a bit internally, it would have not only insulated Google from any Java hijinks, but Google would have (I believe) been a far better steward of Java than Oracle. Google still could have spun off Sun's hardware division, which had not interest for it.

In fact, Java could finally have become what it should have to begin with, and been the premier client-side language for web development, instead of Dart.

Because their head has been up their ass for some time now. I hate to say it, I'm a Google fanboy after all, but Google has jumped the shark on a lot of stuff. There is probably a severe culture problem or some type of power jostle that people just don't see, but something is going on.

Afaict if oracle wins on some patents they will likely be able to get an injunction against google using stuff covered by those patents. If google can't work around them (that is find a way to do what they need to do without stepping on the patent) they will basically be forced to come to some licensing agreement with oracle and since oracle will have them over a barrel said agreement is unlikely to be cheap.

The number of patents involved has reduced massively. More than that, most of those that stayed have lost most of their most important features. Frankly, the collapse in this case is pathetic and very very worrying for Oracle. You would assume that they would be able to come up with some solid patents relevant to almost any VM which runs Java and that this would be the fundamental basis of their defence against Motorola's various database related patents. They have failed to do so at the point where the

Don't be stupid. Android is keeping Java relavent in the mobile space. If you were to _partner_ with Google instead of suing them, you could open make Android an official part of the JCP. Oracle could get an instant foothold into expanding mobile space, thus beating Microsoft and IBM simultaneously. In addition to a new revenue stream, you would get to participate in one of my favoriate activities: suing Apple. You need a foothold in the mobile space, while Google needs your patent portfolio and

Yes, we saw the same with SCO, Microsoft, and many more. Sadly the plot line reads the same in every script.

Accuser: "They owe us a billion trillion dollars!"

Defendant: "Um, show us what we did wrong."

Accuser: "You stole all the sugar from our candy, and used it in your candy!"

Defendant: "We purchased our own sugar, here's the receipt."

Accuser: "Um.. You owe us one thousand dollars!"

Defendant: "What did we do wrong?"

Accuser: "We were going to buy that sugar, and you cut in line."

So the next act that plays out is going to be whether a jury thinks that taking cuts in line is worth paying the accuser any money for. With SCO, it did not turn out so well. With Microsoft and Apple it has paid off about 1% of the time. Lets hope the court and jury follow the norm and tell Oracle to grow up and act like a big business now.

Thanks for the additional points. Honestly, there have been some resources posted regarding the EULAs of several companies that try to do the same thing. "We own any idea you come up with while using our product, because it's obviously our product that gave you the idea. You simply are not capable of having ideas without our stuff." AFAIK, Oracle is the first to try and use this in court.

As an acquaintance of mine says"Very odd times we live in." (instead of bitching about the irrational set of laws bei